intergenric sensibility • gary e. davis • berkeley


		love of better being

	being an intergenric sensibility gary e. davis	May 2018

I’m here coining an adjectival version of ‘genre’.

Thinking about intergenricality itself has no standard domain—Rhetoric, maybe; classically philological.

I want a high mutuality of love between “the” psychological and the literary, confessional and discursive, “philosophical” and philological, “theoretical” and practical.

I want to associate such thinking with conceptual literary studies; or a 21^st century sense of philology.

But such a simple sense of betrothal emerged from improvisation over the years,
not that work was predisposed to be “intergenric.” My bricolagy of past writing is
not disoriented (or “cubist”). I’m no dream of Lucian Freud. But I didn’t set out to be “intergenric.” I’m as I am.

I enjoy resonant ambiguity. Isn’t that why we live: to enjoy?

Another era of the life, beginning again, more individuation, major work? (for one’s life—who’s to say what’s Important), graciousness in teaching, genuineness in activism, joy of being—and witnessing another generation growing “up,” ascending, enlightening —witnessing others play a Hermes (so to speak) of their Work. Sailing on, multiple generations in complement (youth needing elders, elders inspired by youth)—We, rising, flying, cruising, landing—scoping, constellating, deriving preferred discursive shares, not pretending to artistic exemplarity, while insisting on the integrity of going where one may authentically be, doing As If truthfully well, and showing well.

A self-reflectivity of that can be a conception of appreciability precursorily mirrored by constellating, well narrated. Yet, that itself is, to me, precursory for later conceptions of—whatever: telic cohering? Some Grand Way? Having epochal fun, maybe—personal fun, in any event.

What I have in mind, as a matter of process (“genesis ongoing”), is quite specific,
as I mentioned at the end of “genesis...”: “The next cycle of The Project will show in terms of the topics that derive from Its offline version—the “Work”—but more deliberate than the many freestanding combines, 2004—2017, that I constellated into ‘sundry gardening’.” That is: Specific discussions would seem to be free-standing combines, though each is derived from the Work (a placeholder name for offline development). A presentational text evinces itself (as if), though secretly being a trace of its emerging into crystallization.

I know how I want to proceed offline, what I intend to work with; and I’m happy
to have no conception of where it’ll all go in the short term.

Long term: The Project is quite well-defined conceptually. It has a specific title, but I want to keep that private for now; the title might change. “Work-In-Progress” is four syllables, 16 characters; “The Project” is one and five less.

Most of the topic areas of “sundry gardening” aren’t linked from gedavis.com. So, the set of topic areas and subareas (e.g., subarea “love of creativity” under topic area “timing creative life”) show an implicit integration of the two Web sites that will carry over to Cycle 4 of The Project.

Specific improvisations grouped under a given subarea of “sundry gardening” (e.g., again, “love of creativity”) aren’t intended to define the subarea. The topic areas and subareas of “sundry gardening” derive from offline organization which
I modified for heuristically grouping past work. As a indicated at gedavis.com’s May version of “sense of site,” “such a scale was already near to mind when I improvised 2017’s sense of ‘The Project itself’.” “Sundry gardening” implicitly coheres in a very conceptual way that isn’t intimated by anything in the continuum of topic areas.

A trope of upwardness—growing “up”? gaining perspective altitude?—is common, of course. A good sense of heights can involve no elitism at all.

And descent from there implies no condescension, as we may appreciate fine-grained context better; or youth and individuality.

Variable ups and downs of countless lives give the topography of our shared world its ethos, an era, that would look to gods in timelessness like our sea swells of localities rising and waning, lives flourishing and retiring, never to be captured by historiography, only containable by literary pretense: that we can comprehend all that was relevant, that we know all that’s really important.

So we are of worlding. We love ascending and cruising in heights which we might then love to share for a world—though ultimately being mystery.

“...idealizing a wholly flourishing life that may, to my mind, be exemplified
by supporting (advocating, working toward) ecologically flourishing humanity, through advancing community; i.e., understanding ‘advancing community’ relative to centripetal high valuing....”

“... Establishing comprehensive and durable standards of ‘higher’ valuation is, of course, a difficult venture....”

“... Idealizing a wholly flourishing life implies notions of intrinsic value. A good conception of ecologically flourishing humanity requires of itself a conception
of being ‘human’ that comprehends the evolving Conversation of Humanity (‘the’?) well enough. But the challenges can be great fun, as well as expressing fidelity
to vital importances....”

“... I want to explicate aspects of a continuum of interest that coheres (or is
to eventually cohere—and already does offline, I think) formally....”

Cycle 4 will be oriented by the offline organization (relative to
my own explorations).